Buzzkillers Aim to Kill Cannabis Initiative

"Parents, grandparents and concerned citizens of California have filed paperwork to form a political action committee to defeat the November initiative that will help legalize marijuana," announced a group of busybodies known as Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana (BUZZKILL).

Sorry, that should have read CALM.

"Our children's future is at stake: they will see smoking marijuana as harmless and use will go up leading to increased high school dropouts, gangs, crime, drugged driving and a myriad of other social problems," says CALM's president and joyless spinster, Carla Lowe.

The, ahem, grass-roots movement (shouldn't that be grass-killing movement?) understands legalization proponents plan to spend $20 million on television ads to educate the masses. They hope CALM can try to match this through small donations from thousands of spoil sports.

They toss stats claiming cannabis consumption will increase 40 percent if the voter initiative passes, and that the $1.4 billion legalization backers say will be raised through state taxes on buds is:

inflated;

a drop in the bucket ("a mere 1% of state income");

and would be more than wiped out by what would be spent to combat social ills created by legalization.

Meanwhile, local governments are not financially equipped to deal with legalization, CALM claims.

"In order to protect the public, drugs like cannabis that have potential adverse health effects need to be standardized, packaged, and regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Administration," says Forest Tennant, a physician and former West Covina mayor, in the CALM formation announcement.

"The idea that every city and county in California has the ability to safely and competently control aspirin, much less a dangerous drug like cannabis, is an idea that is laughable and must be rejected."

That exact same quote appears in a column by Cliff Kinkaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media Report, that builds its case against legalization by claiming compassionate use "is already out of control in California" because Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell had a medical marijuana card.

Interestingly, the column's main point is to slam a "silly column" by Steve Chapman on the conservative Townhall.com, which is owned by the Christian firm Salem Communications, that claims marijuana legalization would undermine the power of Mexican drug cartels and usher in a new era of peace and tranquility north of the border.

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.